February, '13] HODGE: NEW FLY TRAP IH 



For the large propositions, dairies, stables, slaughter houses, hotel 

 kitchens, markets, and also for other flies, stable, horn, deer or black, 

 bot flies, we need larger and other devices (See plate 1) than the 

 small household flytraps. 



Fig. 1 is a first model of a stable cellar window flytrap. It is 32 

 inches long by 16 inches deep and 12 inches wide, made to fit in the 

 opening of a stable cellar window, the window being removed. The 

 window in the sunniest corner, nearest the stock or manure is chosen, 

 the one about which the flies naturally congregate, and gunny sacks 

 are hung over the other windows. This remains, then, the only light 

 window in the stable or stable cellar and all the flies of everj^ kind go 

 in or out and are caught going or coming. The figure shows the 

 trap after it has been in position for one week at the Worcester Home 

 Farm. 



Fig. 2 shows the same trap after the flies have been emptied and 

 measured. This gives more clearly the construction of the trap. 

 The essentials are also given in cross section in Fig. 3, in the diagram 

 fastened to the end of the trap. At the bottom is a crack, about a 

 quarter inch wide, running the length of both sides. This crack admits 

 the flies to a space covered by a ridge or roof of screen wire with holes 

 large enough for flies to go through (punched with an ice pick) every 

 two inches. Large pans of fly bait — fish heads, poultry cleanings, 

 brewers' waste, blood, or anything available which is found on the 

 premises to most powerfully attract flies can be set on the bottom 

 board — and thus establish a whirlwind focus for all the flies about the 

 place. The other essential in the construction is the fold, or folds in 

 the screen walls. These are simply folds, or open pleats running 

 horizontally across the trap, pointing upward and inward. The 

 flies, in trying to get in or out of the window collect in these folds, 

 run back and forth in them until they pop through one of the holes 

 which occur every tw^o inches and they have never been seen to find 

 a hole on the convex, inside, surface of the wrinkle and crawl down and 

 out again. 



Fig. 4 shows the trap in position. A cow is close inside this vrin- 

 dow. The sun shines directly on her, making this a very bright window 

 in an otherwise dark basement. The trap was set in the window, as 

 shown in Fig. 4, from about July 1st until November. It was not 

 baited at all. It picked up about five quarts of flies, 90 per cent of 

 which were stable flies, practically all that appeared on the place. 

 The rest Avere chiefly horn flies and a single bot fly. There were very 

 few house flies or blow flies, because these had practically all been 

 caught earlier in the season with baited traps. One morning I found 

 the trap swarming with mosquitoes, which had evidently tried to 



